I'm going to recycle an answer gave on the astc mailing list last year. The information is still valid, so apologies for anyone who's read this before:
>A question for exhibit designers. I am in charge of creating an >exhibit that will have a 6 minute video loop as part of the display. >Can anyone reccomend what equipment will allow me to play the >video/DVD and have it loop continuously? I've used a bunch of stuff over the years -- starting with just DVD players then mpeg players (the adtec edje <http://www.adtecinc.com/products/edje1013/index.html> was a nice little piece of hardware) -- but we've been moving to using mac minis <http://www.apple.com/macmini/ > as a platform for all of our video delivery. The price point is a little higher, but it gives a lot of flexibility. We're able to deliver multiple resolution video from the same device, if we need interactivity, it's still the same device, if we want to change the content, we can do it remotely over the network, etc, The software that we use was developed in-house (and we're releasing the code as open-source sometime "soon") but it's essentially the quicktime player at heart, with a software wrapper. Here's what we're doing, all with the same device: - run a single video, looping, in perpetuity (we've had one of the machines doing this for about 12000 hours at this point, never being turned off) - run a single video, looping, with a pause at the end and displaying a couple of still graphics of information before starting the video again (yes, you could just make that part of the video, but when we want to change that content, we change one graphic as opposed to re-rendering the whole movie) - run a set of 16 videos in random order, with never any back to back randomness - run different audio tracks from the video, that aren't necessarily synchronized (a music track doesn't need to be timed or edited to match the video). - run a single video after receiving a touchscreen input. While the video is playing, we're adjusting a lighting control to make an object visible in a case and then fading down the light when the video is done - playing one of 25 videos using input from a tangible object interface (you place something in different locations on a table and it plays a different video) - playback of three different videos synchronized (audio and video) across three different screens. it's also pretty small and light. I can velcro it to the back of a large plasma display or tuck one up in a drop ceiling with no problem. And heck, if I did just want to use it as a dvd player, it has a dvd drive built in, so no worries. you get the idea. While the mini can do very simple, straightforward playback, it also opens a lot of possibilities that wouldn't be available with just a traditional dvd player. Best of all, if I don't need to use one in an exhibit any more, I can give it to a staff member and it's immediately useful to them. -bw. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Bruce Wyman, Director of New Technologies Denver Art Museum / 100 W 14th Ave. Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204 office: 720.913.0159 / fax: 720.913.0002 <bwyman at denverartmuseum.org> -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Bruce Wyman, Director of New Technologies Denver Art Museum / 100 W 14th Ave. Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204 office: 720.913.0159 / fax: 720.913.0002 <bwyman at denverartmuseum.org>
